Before
In 2000, helped by the West African Health Organization, the Ministry of Public Health of Guinea adopted its National Plan to Combat Blindness. Like other neighboring countries in West Africa, Guinea has a national unity program to coordinate actions on the ground, supervise its public health missions and develop a healthcare offering on the ground. its entire territory.
This is how Voir La Vie found itself obliged to concede its second ophthalmological unit opened in Kankan and landed in the third Guinean city, Kindia.
Quickly, the transfer of equipment will allow us to open the first OPH unit in Middle Guinea, within the regional hospital.
Before the arrival of Dr Seikoun KABA, an ophthalmologist trained at Cadesso, the activity of the unit was ensured for 8 years by the team of the energetic M'Bassy SANGARE. This TSO (Higher Technician in Ophthalmology) trained in eye surgery in Gambia, developed the structure within the hospital but also during advanced strategy missions which led him to travel throughout the vast administrative region. from Kindia.
NOW
Faced with the need to also be able to respond to requests for vision correction other than through surgery, the ophthalmological unit was added, in 2011, an optical center. By refusing to ship recycled glasses to Guinea, the corrections of which never perfectly correspond to the needs of local populations, we have made the bet of providing, there, the same quality of optical care as in France.
It is therefore a real assembly and assembly line for lenses and frames which was collected and sent to Kindia. This first, for Voir La Vie, required us to make a number of adaptations: "tropicalize" the recovered material so that it resists local climatic conditions, simplify the water supply systems of the glass grinders, which are heavy consumers of it. field, identify nursing staff with sufficient capabilities to undertake optical training…
At the end of 2011, Kindia was the first Guinean city to offer eyeglasses equipment made on site. Entrusted to Fassou KOLIE, assisted by Tamba Moussa KAMANO and Sayon Ibrahima KOMARA, this center is operational and carries out its annual program to the rhythm of the consultations it practices.
